Maybe not at first, but after a handful of orgasms, it was a wonder what that could do to a woman’s self-confidence, and Jesus, I wanted to see that, too. I wanted a seat at center stage.
My suit jacket was open, and I regretted it. Immensely. My cock was hard, had been since we’d shaken hands, and her fingers had clung to mine like a daughter would to her daddy’s at her first visit to the county fair.
Fuck.
Squeezing her fingers wasn’t intentional. If anything, I’d just liked the feel of her palm against mine, but when I put faint pressure on her, she jerked back like she’d been scalded.
Her cheeks bloomed with heat again, and she whispered, “Mr. O’Grady, what can I do for you?”
You can get on your fucking knees and sort out the hard-on you just caused.
That’s what she could fucking do.
I almost growled at the thought because the image of her on her knees, my cock in her small fist, her dainty mouth opening to take the tip. . . .
Shit.
That had to happen.
Here, too.
In this fancy, frilly, feminine place, I wanted to defile her.
Fuck, I wanted that so goddamn much, it was enough to make me reconsider my demolition plans.
I wanted to screw her against all this goddamn lace, which suited her perfectly. She was made for lace. And silk. Hell, silk would look like heaven against her skin. I wouldn’t know where she ended and it began.
When her brow puckered, she dipped her chin, and that gorgeous wave of auburn hair slipped over her shoulder.
If we’d been alone, if that brassy bitch—who was staring at me like I could fuck her over the counter with her friend watching if I was game—wasn’t here, I’d have grabbed that rope of hair, twisted it around my fingers, and forced her gaze up.
Some guys liked their women demure. And I was one of them. I wasn’t about to lie. I liked that in her, but I wanted her eyes on me. Always.
It was enough to prompt me to bite out, “Can we speak privately?”
She jerked at my words, then as she licked her bottom lip, turned to look at the waitress. “Jenny, it’s okay. I can handle the rest by myself. You get home.”
Jenny, her gaze drifting between me and her boss, nodded. She retreated to a door that swung as she moved through the opening, and within seconds, she had her coat and purse over her arm.
As she sashayed past—for my benefit, I was sure—she murmured, “See you tomorrow, Aoife.”
Aoife nodded and shot her friend a smile, but I wasn’t smiling. There were dishes on every table. Plates and saucers and tea pots. Those fancy stands that made any man wonder if he could touch it without snapping it.
Aoife was going to clear all that herself? Not on my fucking watch.
When the bell rang as the waitress opened the door, I didn’t take my eyes off her until it rang once more upon closing.
Aoife swallowed, and I watched her throat work, watched it with a hunger that felt alien to me, because, God, I wanted to see my bites on her. Wanted to see my marks on that pale column of skin and her tits.
Barely withholding a groan, I asked, “Do you often let your staff go when you still have a lot of work to do, so you can speak to a stranger?”
Her cheeks flushed again, and she took a step back. “I-I, you’re not—” Flustered once more, she fell silent.
“I’m not what?” Curiosity had me asking the question. Whatever I’d expected her to say, it hadn’t been that.
She cleared her throat. “N-Nothing. You wished to speak with me, Mr. O’Grady?”
My other hand tightened around my briefcase, and though seeing her had made my reason for being here all that more necessary, I was almost disappointed.
There was a gentle warmth to those bright-green eyes that would die out when I told her my purpose for being here. And her innocent attraction to me would change, morph into something else.
But I could only handle something else.
Some men were made for forever.
But those men weren’t in my line of business.
I moved away from her, pressing my briefcase to one of the few empty tables. I wasn’t happy about her having to do all the clearing up later on, and wondered if Paul, my PA, would know who to call to get her some help.
There was no way I was spending the rest of the night alone in my bed, my only companion my fist wrapped around my cock.
No way, no fucking how.
I paid Paul enough for him to come and clear the fucking place on his own if he couldn’t find someone else.
I wanted Aoife on her knees, bent over my goddamn bed, and I was a man who always got what he wanted.
In this jungle, I was the lion, and Aoife? She was my prey.
I keyed in the code and opened my briefcase. The manila envelope was large and thick, well-padded with my documentation of Aoife’s every move for the past few months.
It had started off as a legitimate move.
I’d wanted to know her weaknesses, so I could put pressure on her and make her cave to my demands.
Now, my demands had changed. I didn’t just want her to sell the tea room we were standing in, I wanted her in my bed.
Fuck, I wanted that more than I wanted to make Aidan Sr. a fucking profit, and Aidan’s profit and my balls still being attached to my body ran hand in hand.
Aidan was an evil cunt.
If I failed to deliver, he’d take it out on me. Whether I was his idea of an adopted son or not, he’d have done the same to his blood sons.
Well, he wouldn’t have taken their balls. The man, for all his psychotic flaws, was obsessed with the idea of grandchildren, of passing it all on to the next generation. He’d cut his boys though. Without a doubt.
I knew Conor had marks on his back from a beating he refused to speak about. Then there was Brennan. He had a weak wrist because his father had a habit of breaking that wrist.
Without speaking, I grabbed the envelope and passed it to her.
She frowned down at it and asked, “For me?”
I smiled at her. “Open it.”
“What is it?”
“Leverage.”
That had her eyes flaring wide as she pulled out some of the photos. A gasp fell from her lips as she grabbed the photos when she spotted herself in them, jerking so hard the envelope tore. Some of the pictures spilled to the ground, but I didn’t care about that.
Leaning back against one of the dainty tables once I was satisfied it would take my weight, I watched her cheeks blanch, all that delicious color dissipating as she took in everything the photos revealed.
“Y-You’ve been stalking me. Why?”
The question was high-pitched, loaded down with panic. I’d heard it often enough to recognize it easily.
I didn’t get involved in wet work anymore. That wasn’t my style, but along the way, to reach this point, I’d had no choice but to get my hands dirty. Panic was part of the job when you were collecting debts for the Irish Mob. And the Five Points were notorious for Aidan Sr.’s temper.
He wasn’t the first patriarch. If anything, his grandfather was the founder. But Aidan Sr. was the type of guy that if you didn’t pay him back, he didn’t give a fuck about the money, he cared about the lack of respect.
See, you owe the mob and don’t pay? They send heavies around, beat the shit out of you, and threaten to do the same to your family, and usually, that does the trick. You don’t kill the cash cow.
Aidan Sr.?
He doesn’t give a fuck about the cash cow.
Only the truly desperate think about borrowing money from Aidan, because if you don’t pay it back, he’ll take your teeth, and your fingers and toes as a first warning. Then, if you still don’t pay—and most do—it’s death.
Respect means a lot to Aidan.
And fuck, if it wasn’t starting to mean a lot to me. The panic in her voice? It made my cock throb.
I wanted this woman weak and willing.
I
wanted it more than I wanted my next breath.
Ignoring her, I reached for my phone and tapped out a message to Paul.
Need housekeeping crew to clean this place.
I attached my live location, saw the blue ticks as Paul read the message—he knew better than to ignore my texts, whatever time of day they came—and he replied: Sure thing.
That was the kind of reply I was used to getting. Not just from Paul, but from everyone.
There were very few people who weren’t below me in the strata of Five Points, and I’d worked my ass off to make that so.
The only people who ranked above me included Aidan and his brothers, Aidan Sr. of course, and then maybe a handful of his advisors that he respected for what they’d done for him and the Points over the years.
But the money I made Aidan Sr.?
That blew most of their ‘advice’ out of the window.
The reason Aidan had a Dassault Falcon executive private plane?
Because I was, as the City itself called me, a whiz kid.
I’d made my first million—backed by the Points, of course—at twenty-two.
Fifteen years later?
I’d made him hundreds of millions.
My own personal fortune was nothing to sniff at, either.
“W-Why have you done this?” Aoife asked, her voice breathy enough to make me wonder if she sounded like that in the sack.
“Because you’ve been a very stubborn little girl.”
Her eyes flared wide. “Excuse me?”
I reached into the inside pocket of my suit coat and pulled out a business card. “For you,” I prompted, offering it to her.
When she turned it over, saw the logo of five points shaped into a star, then read Acuig—in the Gaelic way, ah-coo-ig, not a butchered American way, ah-coo-ch—aloud, I watched her throat work as she swallowed.
“I-I should have realized with the Irish name,” she whispered, the muscles in her brow twitching as she took in the chaos of the scattered photos on the floor.
Watching her as she dropped the contents on the ground, so she was surrounded by them, I tilted my head to the side, taking her in as her panic started to crest.
“I-I won’t sell.” Her first words surprised me.
I should have figured, though. Everything about this woman was surprisingly delicious.
“You have no choice,” I purred. “See, the Senator has a wife as far as I’m aware. He also has an image to protect. I’m not sure he’d be happy if any of those made it onto the National Enquirer’s front page. Not when he’s just trying to shore up his image to take a run for the White House next election.”
She reached up and clutched her throat. The self-protective gesture was enough to make me smile at her—I knew what the absence of hope looked like.
There’d been a time when that had been my life, too.
“But, on the bright side,” I carried on, “this can all be wiped away if you sell.” As her gaze flicked to mine, I added, “As well as if you do something for me.”
For a second, she was speechless. I could see she knew what that something was. Had my body language given it away? Had there been a certain raspiness to my tone?
I wasn’t sure, and frankly, didn’t give a fuck.
There was a little hiccoughing sound that escaped her lips, and she frowned at me, then down at herself.
“Is this a joke?”
“Do I look like I’m the kind of guy who jokes, Aoife?” Fuck, I loved saying her name.
The Gaelic notes just drove me insane.
Ee-Fah.
Nothing like the spelling, and all the more complicated and delicious for it.
“N-No,” she confirmed, “but . . .”
“But what?” I prompted.
“I mean . . . you just can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” I grinned. “Deadly. You’ve wasted a lot of my time, Aoife Keegan. A lot. Do you think I’m normally involved in negotiations of this level?”
Her eyes whispered over me, and I felt the loving caress of her gaze as she took in each and every inch of me. When she licked her lips, I knew she liked what she saw. I didn’t really care, but it was helpful for her to be eager in some small way—especially when coercion was involved.
See, Aidan had called it bribery.
I preferred to term it as coercion. It sounded far kinder.
“No. That suit alone probably cost the mortgage payment on this place.”
I nodded—she wasn’t wrong. I knew what she’d been paying as rent, then as a mortgage, before some kind benefactor had paid it all off. Free and clear.
“I had to get my hands dirty, and while I might like some things dirty . . .,” I trailed off, smirking when she flushed. “So, as I see it, we have a problem. I want this building. You don’t want anyone to know you’re having an affair with a Senator. Or, should I say, the Senator doesn’t want anyone to know he’s having an affair with someone young enough to be his daughter . . .”
If my voice turned into a growl at that point, then it was because the notion of her spreading her legs for that old bastard just turned my stomach.
Fuck, this woman, the thoughts she made me think.
Because I was startled at the possessive note to my growl, I ran a hand over my head. I kept my hair short for a reason—ease. I wasn’t the kind of man who wasted time primping. It was an expensive cut, so I didn’t have to do anything to it. Even mussing it up had it falling back into the same sleek lines as before—a man in my position had to look pristine under pressure. And very few people could even begin to understand the kind of strain I was under.
The formation of igneous rock had less volcanic pressure than Aidan Sr.
She licked her lips as she stared down at the photos, then back up at me. “And you want me to sell the place to you, even though this is my livelihood and the livelihood of all my staff, and then sleep with you?”
Her squeaky voice, putting suspicion into words, had me crossing my legs at the ankle. “We wouldn’t be doing much sleeping.”
Another shaky breath soughed from her lips, then, those beautiful pillowy morsels that would look good around my cock, quivered.
“This is crazy,” she whispered shakily.
“As far as I’m concerned, all of this could be avoided if you’d just sold to me a few months back. Now you have to pay for my time wasted on this project.”
“By spreading my legs?”
Another squeak. I tsked at her question, but in truth, I was annoyed at her using those same words I had to describe her with that old hypocrite of a Senator.
I didn’t move, though. Didn’t even flex my arms in irritation, just murmured, “Small price to pay. And, even though it’s ten percent above market price, I’ll stick to the last offer Acuig gave you. Can’t say anything’s fairer than that.”
She shook her head, and there was a desperation to the gesture as she cried, “I need this business. You don’t understand—”
“I understand that some very powerful and very dangerous businessmen want this building demolished. I understand that those same powerful and dangerous men want a skyscraper taking up this plot of land. I understand that a four hundred million dollar project isn’t going to be put on hiatus because one small Irish woman doesn’t want to go out of business . . .” I cocked a brow at her. “You think I’m coming in hot and heavy? These kinds of men, Aoife, they’re not the sort you fuck around with. Take my check, and my other offer, before you or your family are threatened.” I got to my feet and straightened my jacket out. “This suit? These shoes? That briefcase and this watch? I own them because I’m damn good at what I do. I’m a financial advisor, Aoife. Take my word for it. You’re getting the best deal out of this.”
She staggered back, the counter stopping her from crumpling to the floor. “You’d hurt me?”
“Not me,” I repudiated. Not in the way she thought, anyway. “But the men I work for?”
Her gaze dropped to the one thi
ng she’d retained in her hand—my card. “Acuig,” she whispered. “Five in Gaelic.”
My brows twitched in surprise. She knew Gaelic?
“The Five Points.” Her eyes flared wide with terror. “They’re behind this deal.”
I hadn’t expected her to put one and one together, but now that she had? It worked to my advantage.
Nodding, I told her, “Any minute now, there’ll be a team of housekeepers coming in here to clear up for the night.” When she gaped at me, I retrieved the contract from my briefcase, slapped it on the table, and handed her a pen as I carried on, “I suggest you let tonight be your last night of business.”
What I didn’t tell her, was that my suggestions weren’t wasted words. They were like the law.
You didn’t break them, and, like any lawmaker, I expected immediate obeisance.
❖
Aoife
So, the beautiful man just happened to be an absolute cocksucker of a bastard.
Still, this couldn’t be real, could it?
The dick could have anyone he wanted. Jesus, Jenny was panting after him like a dog in heat. She would have gone out with him if he’d so much as clicked his fingers at her.
But he’d had eyes for me.
Like he wanted me.
He thought he’d bought me. Or, at least, bought my silence, and yeah, to some extent he had. But . . . why buy me, why not just drop the price on the building if he wanted me to pay for the time he’d wasted on me?
The arrogance imbued in those words was enough to make me pull my hair out, but that was inwardly. I was a redhead. I had a temper. But that temper was mostly overshadowed by fear.
Senator Alan Davidson wasn’t my boyfriend, my lover, as this dick seemed to believe. He was my father, and as Finn O’Grady had correctly surmised, he was aiming for the White House.
How could I put that in jeopardy?
My dad was a good man. He’d made a mistake one summer when he’d come home from college, one that only some careful digging by his campaign manager had uncovered. Dad himself hadn’t known of my existence, not until his CM had gone hunting for any nasty secrets that could come out and bite him in the ass.
This had been five years ago when he’d run for Senator. Now, Dad’s goal was the presidential seat, and I wasn’t going to be the one who put a wrench in the works.
Screw You: A Screwed Duet (Five Points, Hell's Kitchen Book 1) Page 3